Michael Ovitz
| Michael Ovitz | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 14, 1946 Chicago, Illinois |
| Occupation | Co-founder of the Creative Artists Agency President of the Walt Disney Company |
| Spouse(s) | Judy Reich (m. 1969) |
| Children | Christopher Ovitz Kimberly Ovitz Eric Ovitz |
Michael S. Ovitz (born December 14, 1946) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is a talent agent who co-founded Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1975 and served as its chairman until 1995. Ovitz later served as President of the Walt Disney Company from October 1995 to January 1997.
Ovitz was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a liquor wholesaler. Raised in Encino, California, he attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, a classmate of Sally Field. While a pre-med student at UCLA, he began his entertainment career as a part-time tour guide at Universal Studios. Upon graduating from UCLA in 1968 with a degree in theater, film, and television, he secured a job in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency. Within a year he was promoted, becoming a highly successful television agent. Six years later, he and four other young colleagues left William Morris to found Creative Artists Agency.
Ovitz founded Creative Artists Agency in 1975 along with fellow William Morris Agents Ron Meyer, Bill Haber, Rowland Perkins, and Mike Rosenfeld. Borrowing only $21,000 from a bank, the agents rented a small office, conducting business on card tables and rented chairs, their wives taking turns as agency receptionist.
Under his direction, CAA quickly grew from a start-up organization to the world’s leading talent agency, expanding from television into film, investment banking, and advertising. Ovitz was known for assembling “package deals”, wherein CAA would utilize its talent base to provide directors, actors and screenwriters to a studio, thus shifting the negotiating leverage from the studios to the talent. As CAA rose in stature Ovitz became one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Promoted to President, then to Chairman of the Board, his roles at CAA were numerous. He served as talent agent to Hollywood actors Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Costner, John Belushi, Michael Douglas, Bill Murray, Sylvester Stallone, and Barbra Streisand, as well as directors Steven Spielberg, Barry Levinson, and Sydney Pollack. He also provided corporate consulting services, helping negotiate several major international business mergers and deals including Matsushita’s acquisition of MCA/Universal, the financial rescue of MGM/United Artists, and Sony’s acquisition of Columbia Pictures. His signing of Coca-Cola as a CAA client from agency McCann-Erickson had a significant impact on the advertising industry. He negotiated David Letterman's move from NBC to CBS, chronicled in the book The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night by Bill Carter.
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